In a massive operation that is still in progress, the Ministry of Interior took into custody Monday 17 suspects in a case of espionage, blackmail, deceit and criminal association, the first of its kind ever in Macedonia and the whole region of the Western Balkans, Nova Makedonija reports. Well known names of the show business, police officers, intelligence agents, employees of the Ministry of Defense, a senior parliamentary official and former chiefs of important state institutions were arrested in the police operation in Skopje Monday morning. They are all suspected of having sold confidential state information to foreign secret services. What are the foreign secret services is yet to be revealed.

“Police took into custody 17 out of 22 suspects. Some of them are abroad as two of them are already in jail for other crimes. They will be brought before the investigative judge within 24 hours,” said Ivo Kotevski, spokesman for the Interior Ministry.

He refrained from revealing detailed information about the unlawful activities of the suspects expect that the police operation with the code name “Spy” began two years ago and that the police have gathered meanwhile extensive evidence. Representatives of the OSCE following the case attended Kotevski’s press conference Monday as well.

The suspects include such names as General Goran Stojkov, Boris Damovski, director and author of the animated TV show “Ednooki,” Vane Cvetanov, former director of the Agency for the Prevention of Money Laundering, Ace Dinevski, former functionary of the Intelligence Agency, Marjan Madzovski, Parliament Speaker Trajko Veljanoski’s chief of staff and journalist Zoran Bozinovski.